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Arlington, VA, September 19, 2012 – As the race to the White House heats up, PBS LearningMedia has launched the Election 2012 Collection, a compilation of election-focused digital resources available to K-12 classrooms and educators nationwide. The Election 2012 Collection features a student-aimed Elections 2012 newscast, highlighting issues from the campaign trail, a multimedia glossary, interactive digital games and lesson plans geared towards high school students and teachers. “The PBS LearningMedia Election 2012 Collection is designed to allow teachers to invite students into a deeper understanding of and a more active participation in the election process,” said Rob Lippincott, Senior Vice President, PBS Education. “These engaging digital assets are supplemented with lesson plans aligned to state curriculum frameworks, turning the issues which dominate the news into rich opportunities for learning at every level of schooling.”

The Election 2012 newscast, titled “In the News,” features a playlist of video clips focused on current events involving the candidates and issues in the upcoming presidential election. “In the News” pulls rich, multimedia content from PBS NEWSHOUR, NEED TO KNOW, Youth Radio and KQED. From animations depicting the road to the presidency to video of the candidates addressing pivotal topics, the multimedia glossary explains vocabulary words and definitions alongside real world and historical examples. The glossary will cover a wide variety of political science concepts including constitutional democracy, First Amendment rights, campaign strategies, the road to nomination and the road to the presidency. The Election 2012 Collection will also feature “Road Trip to the White House,” a new game that requires students to correctly answer questions based on animations and multimedia glossary terms, like PAC, Super PAC, primary, caucus, delegates, party platform, battleground states and more. As players progress in the game, they travel towards Washington D.C., where the nation’s capital is the final stop. Along the way, players are given opportunities to share what they’ve learned through themed postcards sent from the road to friends via Facebook.

For more information on PBS Election 2012, including programming from PBS NEWSHOUR, WASHINGTON WEEK, FRONTLINE and NEED TO KNOW, visit pbs.org/election2012 and follow #pbsElection on Twitter.

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